k out for another situation."

"Ah, there you don't know him!" broke in the boy: "he can't endure
this kind of thing. He only consented to take me because his health was
breaking up from hard reading; he wanted rest and a change of climate.
At first he refused altogether, and only gave way when some of his
college dons over-persuaded him."

She smiled a half-assent, but said nothing.

"Then there's another point," said he, suddenly: "I'm sure his Lordship
has not been very measured in the terms of his letter to him. I can just
fancy the tone of it; and I don't know how poor Alfred is to bear that."

"My dear boy, you'll learn one of these days--and the knowledge will
come not the less soon from your being a Peer--that all the world is
either forbearing or overbearing. You must be wolf or lamb: there's no
help for it."

"Alfred never told me so," said he, sternly.

"It's more than likely that he did not know! There are no men know less
of life than these college creatures; and there lies the great mistake
in selecting such men for tutors for our present-day life and its
accidents. Alexandre Dumas would be a safer guide than Herodotus; and
Thackeray teach you much more than Socrates."

"If I only had in my head one-half of what Alfred knew, I 'd be well
satisfied," said the boy. "Ay, and what's better still, without his
thinking a bit about it."

"And so," said she, musingly, "you are to go back to England?"

"That does not seem quite settled, for he says, in a postscript, that
Sir George Rivers, one of the Cabinet, I believe, has mentioned some
gentleman, a 'member of their party,' now in Italy, and who would
probably consent to take charge of me till some further arrangements
could be come to."

"Hold your chain till a new bear-leader turned up!" said she, laughing.
"Oh dear! I wonder when that wise generations of guardians will come to
know that the real guide for the creatures like you is a woman. Yes,
you ought to be travelling with your governess,--some one whose ladylike
tone and good manners would insensibly instil quietness, reserve, and
reverence in your breeding, correct your bad French, and teach you to
enter or leave a room without seeming to be a housebreaker!"

"I should like to know who does that?" asked he, indignantly.

"Every one of you young Englishmen, whether you come fresh from
Brasenose or the Mess of the Forty-something, you have all of you the
same air of bashful bull-dogs!"

"Oh,